


The Greek Scientist

by calvinahobbes



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Baby Fic, Bechdel Test Pass, Case Fic, Gen, Humor, Kidnapping, Women Being Awesome, baby in a basket
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 18:50:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/827637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calvinahobbes/pseuds/calvinahobbes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There's a baby on our doorstep," Joan said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Greek Scientist

**Author's Note:**

> Be advised that the kidnapping referred to in tags does not happen to the baby.
> 
> Credit to liviapenn for the initial idea. Thanks for Kabal42 for plot aid and beta.
> 
> If for some terrible reason you should be bored with babies or kidnapping plots, you can always play "Spot the reference" of which there are several.

There was an erratic knocking on the front door. Joan was in the kitchen making a smoothie so it took a while before she heard it over the noise of the blender. Who knew how long they'd been knocking. 

She went to the stairs. Another rapid succession of thumps on the door. "Sherlock!" she called. "Can you get that?"

"Sorry, Watson," came the dim reply from the second floor. "Bit tied up at the moment." 

Joan knew better than to take it metaphorically, so the mosied up the stairs. The knocking had stopped. Just as she was at the top of the stairs there was the sound of a car door slamming and tires screeching. That could not be good. She rushed to open the door, but there was no one outside. She was just about to run down to the sidewalk to try to catch a glimpse of the car, but at the last second she sensed an obstacle by her feet and stumbled in an effort not to step on it.

The obstacle was a baby carrier. With a baby in it. 

Joan felt her stomach sink. The baby was sleeping fitfully, and she eyed it warily. Very calmly, and as loudly as she dared, she said, "Sherlock. Get down here _immediately_."

There was a thump and a crash, a muttered curse, and then Sherlock's footsteps running down the stairs. 

Joan stared fixedly at the baby, somehow afraid it might disappear if she looked away for a moment.

"Watson? You summoned me?" He sounded disgustingly cheerful. He had probably broken some kind of personal record escaping whatever odd trap he'd devised for himself.

"There's a baby on our doorstep," Joan said, as lightly as she could manage. The whole situation was ridiculous!

"I beg your pardon?" He'd reached her, standing just behind her, and she could feel the moment his attention shifted from her face to the object of her attention. "Watson!" he exclaimed. "It's a baby!" He rushed forward to scoop the carrier into his arms. "Why on earth didn't you pick it up?" 

Joan felt a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry, I was kind of taken aback!" 

"Surely that's no reason to be rude." He scanned the street quickly before hiking the carrier up and making to go inside. 

Joan blocked him. "What are you doing?"

Sherlock gave her an odd look. "I'm taking the baby inside, Watson. Based on your behavior and the emptiness of the street I assume its parents aren't immediately to be found. I am taking it inside to try to discover its provenance." 

She stepped aside and watched mutely as Sherlock brought the baby carrier into the living room. The clang of the door shutting evinced a snuffling sound from the plastic casing. "Ah, our guest is awake," Sherlock said, sounding pleased, just before a wail erupted. Joan felt it pierce right through her and hung back as Sherlock tutted and rocked the carrier. "Let's get a look at you, eh?" he said and carefully lifted the baby free of the blankets. Joan noted mutely that he seemed to know what he was doing, supporting its neck with his hand and holding it along his arm as he placed it on the couch. 

The baby was very small. Joan didn't know much about newborns except for the basics she had learned in medical school, but she thought it couldn't be more than a month or two old. It was wearing a silly yellow baby hat and a cream-colored onesie with a smiling sun on the front. Sherlock took the hat off, revealing a shock of dark hair, and as the baby fussed and kicked he gently checked each wrist. "Ah," he said wryly. "No, I suppose that would be too easy." 

Joan realised he was checking for a hospital wrist band, the kind they put on newborns in the maternity ward to tell them apart. "He's probably too old to be from a hospital. I'd say he's more than a month old. He's clearly not newborn," she explained. It soothed her a little to think of it as a case that needed solving.

"So someone has been taking care of you," Sherlock said to the baby. "Someone has brought you home from the hospital, fed you, clothed you, changed you. Clearly it's not a case of an unwanted child." The last was directed at Joan.

"Someone was trying to bang the door down," Joan said. "Whoever it was would hardly have done that if they just wanted to leave him here." The absurdity of the situation suddenly struck her. "God, this isn't the eighteen hundreds anyway! If someone didn't want their baby there are safe haven options that don't involve dumping it on our doorstep."

"Right you are indeed, Watson," Sherlock said in an uncharacteristically soft voice. She was drawn closer to the couch where he was kneeling in front of the baby, arms gently framing it. "Would you survey the contents of the carrier, please?" he asked, keeping his eyes on the baby. The two were gazing at each other, the baby seeming nearly hypnotised by the eye contact.

Joan, shaking off the uncanny feeling, went to check the blankets. There was a single-ride Metro Card there, with something scribbled in blue ink over the green logo. "'Mr Holmes, please protect Toni. My husb--' That's all it says. It looks like was written in a hurry. Did you hear the car rushing away from here?"

"I did." He reached an arm back and Joan placed the ticket there. Sherlock held it up next to the baby's face. "It seems rather clear. Toni's mother came to us for help concerning her husband, obviously fearing for her child and for some reason afraid to go directly to the police..."

"How do you know it's a woman?" Joan smirked, feeling pretty clever.

Sherlock scoffed. "The handwriting almost certainly indicates a woman, writing with her left hand, and based on the slope and design of the lettering she is quite likely bilingual. This theory is further corroborated by little Toni's skin tone and eye color." Joan took a moment to feel once again surpassed by Sherlock's deductions. "Someone must have snatched her right from our doorstep before you could open the door," he continued thoughtfully.

Joan felt a wave of unease and guilt. "If I hadn't been too lazy to go upstairs--"

"Yes, and if I hadn't been too busy tying myself up. We can hardly blame ourselves for what happened, Watson. It was over before we could have done anything. Based on how quietly she came along we can also assume the kidnappers had guns."

"Kidnappers, plural." She thought. "One to hold the victim at gunpoint, and one to drive the car." 

"Right you are. Two kidnappers at the least."

She felt momentarily better, proving herself not completely unable to keep up.

Sherlock waggled the metro card, and the baby's eyes followed the movement. "A single ticket might indicate that Toni's mother wished to leave as little trace of her movements as possible. Still, we might be able to find out where she travelled from." He pushed up in a fluid motion. "Watch the baby, Watson."

Joan eyed Toni warily, inching slightly closer but unsure of what to do do. Sherlock went to his closet, bringing out one of his boxes of tech scraps. He was rummaging around when the baby started to fidget again. 

"I think he's about to cry," she said uncertainly. 

"Well? Pick it up, Watson. Babies like closeness. They feel your heartbeat and feel safer." Sherlock dumped a handful of indistinguishable stuff on the table. 

The baby fretted, like he was gearing up for a wail like the one earlier. Joan hurried to scoop him up. Toni cried like she had pinched him. "Sherlock!"

Sherlock turned to give Joan another surprised look. "Try rocking him." He was gazing at her steadily now, and Joan didn't like the attention. She jiggled the baby and he cried louder.

"I don't think he likes me."

"Nonsense." Sherlock came closer. "I think it's the other way around." He sounded amused, but his face wasn't betraying anything.

"Fine, alright. I don't like babies, okay? Now, will you please take him?" She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt as unsettled as she did in that moment, holding an unhappy baby without knowing what to do to make it feel better.

Sherlock came forward and gently lifted it out of her arms. He held the baby close in the crook of his arm and swayed gently. The crying seemed to diminish but didn't stop. 

"Do you think he's sick? Maybe I should check him over." Mentally she went through the list of common child ailments and their symptoms.

"I hardly think the baby is sick, Watson. It is infinitely more likely it is in need of either food or a fresh diaper." 

Joan stared at him. "Maybe we should call the police."

"It's not quite a job for New York's finest, I don't think." Sherlock was definitely amused now, seemingly completely unfazed by the crying infant in his arms. "Besides," he said seriously, "they would have to call child protective services. We would be doing the mother a disservice."

Joan knew he was right. Although the mother had very likely been kidnapped, there was still hope that they would be able to find her quickly. Getting social services involved would undoubtedly complicate things for her after she had done her best to protect her baby. Joan looked at the still-crying infant.

"I'm afraid I will need your help investigating this, Watson. Would you be so kind as to fetch that long multicolored shawl that's draped over you second-best black dress? Meanwhile I shall make a call for reinforcements." 

Joan spared a second to give Sherlock A Look for being so well acquainted with the contents of her closet, but when the baby put extra force behind his next wail, she turned away quickly without asking any questions. 

When she came back down stairs Sherlock had taken his shirt off and was ending a phone call with an "I will see you shortly, then. Goodbye!"

"What happened to your shirt?" she asked, handing the scarf over.

"Babies find skin contact soothing. As you can see, Toni has stopped crying." 

"At least for now," Joan muttered.

"Let's see," Sherlock said, ignoring her. He put the scarf over the baby's back, swinging one end across his own back and over his shoulder and then repeated the motion with the other end of the cloth, before he tied it off with a knot at the small of his back. "There we go. Snug - as - a - bug." He grinned down at the baby whose head was peeking out of the vee of the impromptu sling.

Joan frowned. "How did you know how to do that?"

"Oh, it's really quite basic. Mothers have been wrapping their babies for centuries. It's very simple to deduce the method once you've seen it in effect." The baby made a gurgling sound and dragged its face along his chest, but Sherlock didn't seem to mind being drooled on. "Now! I was looking for..." and he went blithely back to rummaging through the contents of his box. "Ah, here it is." He held up a crude card scanner, and Joan resisted the impulse to ask why he had that.

He went to plug it into the computer and swiped the card through. "Excellent. Now we have our raw code. I shall have to outsource its translation to one of my irregulars, but it shouldn't take long." He was pulling up an email client and writing a string of nonsense, attaching a file, and sending before she'd properly seen it all.

He held the Metro Card up again, studying it closely.

"You said you think the mother is bilingual..." Joan started.

Sherlock pointed, and Joan leaned over his shoulder. The baby looked up at her. "Notice the i in Toni has a cursive curl at the bottom but it hasn't been dotted. Furthermore the underside of the S's dip below the bottom line of the other letters. Both are common traits of the Greek alphabet."

"So, you think the mother is Greek. But how does that help us--" 

The email client made a New Message sound. Sherlock opened it. "Hmm, not a bad area of town. Residential but close to several areas of white collar industries." He pulled up a search window. The doorbell rang. "Ah, our delivery man is here."

Joan, suddenly very conscious of the tiny person strapped to Sherlock's chest, went to check the street out of the living room window. "Sure about that?" There were no unfamiliar cars outside. 

Sherlock joined her by the door, but Joan stopped him from opening it. "Who is it?" she called. Sherlock gave her a proud look, which she ignored.

"It's Alfredo, open up!"

She opened to find him bogged down with a number of plastic bags. "I came as fast as I could, Holmes," he said over her shoulder. "You owe me a major favor. You try being a black man making inquiries about how to take care of a one-month-old baby. You better pray this isn't for some sort of kinky experiment..." his tirade petered out as he got a full view of Sherlock. "What the hell?" He cast a glance at Joan. "Is there something you guys want to tell me?"

Joan rolled her eyes. "It's not ours." She divested him of several bags and closed the door behind him. 

Alfredo's face was right up against the baby's, Sherlock standing by with a serene smile on his face. "Are you sure?" He squinted. 

"Thank you, yes, I'm very sure," Joan said drily. 

Alfredo grinned. "What about you, man?" He clapped Sherlock on the shoulder. "No accidents in the past? Secret baby mama dump him on your doorstep?"

"I can assure you I am always very careful to use prophylactics."

Joan made a sound to indicate that was far too much information.

"You know, those are only like 98% effective? A lesson to us all." Alfredo trailed behind them into the living room. "So what's the story? Supplementing your income?"

"Someone did leave him on our doorstep," Joan explained. "We think his mother was kidnapped right outside."

Alfredo gave an impressed whistle. Sherlock, meanwhile, had released the sling and was putting the baby back down on the couch. "You have arrived just in time, Alfredo. If I'm not much mistaken, Toni is quite ripe for a diaper change."

"Yeah, man... I hope you know how to deal with that. I'm not much of an expert." Alfredo hung back back, just like Joan had done, and she could see him studying Sherlock as if he was revising some of his ideas about him.

"Well, I'm sure it can't be that difficult," Sherlock asserted and started undressing the squirming baby. 

Just before he was about to remove the diaper Joan came to her senses and scooted a newspaper under his hands. "I am not cleaning baby poo off the couch, Sherlock. Use that." 

Sherlock adjusted the newspaper without comment, clucking at the baby. Joan handed him a diaper and scrounged in the bags for a wet wipe. 

"Well!" Sherlock exclaimed. "It would appear our Toni isn't, as I believe both of you thought, an Antony but an Antonia. At least I should think it most prudent to assume so until she can correct us ourselves."

"Why you gotta make things so complicated?" Alfredo said wryly. "Why not just say, 'Oh, it's a girl.'?"

"I find that allowing for so-called complications tends to actually render life much easier to navigate," Sherlock replied distractedly.

Joan and Alfredo stood quietly by as Sherlock managed to wipe the baby down, expertly hooking her up by the ankles with one hand and calmly hushing her when she complained. They shared a brief glance that seemed to say, "Well whataya know..." 

"So, Holmes... What's the story? Oldest kid in a large family?" Alfredo asked. "I mean, I have two sisters, but I certainly never learned how to change a diaper."

"Indeed I only have an older brother. I don't understand why you assume these are skills I must have picked up from experience when the faculty of observation is surely enough to learn such basic tricks."

Joan stared at him. "You have an older brother? You never told me that."

"He is much older than I, Watson. I'm afraid we are quite estranged since my drug addiction." He grinned at Toni and swooped her off the couch, making her squeal.

"I don't know about you," Alfredo mumbled to her as they watched Sherlock expertly bundle the baby back up in the makeshift sling, "but I'm pretty turned on." Joan chuckled and bumped his shoulder with hers. 

"Now, I believe something came up on my search," Sherlock said and headed for the computer again.

"Right, well," Alfredo called. "I'm out. Call me if you need me to teach her how to break into a car." He waved and made for the door.

Joan waved back and went to join Sherlock at the computer. On the screen was a picture of a woman in a white lab coat. It was a press photograph, clearly staged, but the setting looked homey, not office-like. She was smiling at the camera, her long, dark, curly hair tumbling over her shoulders. 

Sherlock pointed at the screen. "Doctor Sophia Kratides. Recently famed for a discovery which could lead to a new type of cancer treatment. Apparently she spent her unpaid maternity leave conducting some private research, which proved inordinately fruitful. The name was familiar to me from the police scanner, when yesterday someone filed a missing person's report for a Paul Kratides. I suppose that would be the husband she was referring to in her note."

"So we can assume her husband was also kidnapped. Not somehow responsible for her disappearance," Joan concluded.

"It would seem so. My contact has taken the liberty of checking her email account." He pulled up another screen view, ignoring Joan's long look. "As you can see there are a number of messages from an unknown address, offering quite a large sum of money, I assume as compensation for signing over her work to some unknown part. And - when the carrot proved ineffective - a wide range of threats, which suddenly stopped the day before yesterday."

"They're threats?" she squinted at the screen. "These are all in Greek. Is there any language you don't know?"

"I don't know Greek, in fact. At least I am hardly proficient, but my associate ran them through a translation software."

"But the messages stopped before Paul's disappearance. So there's no email with the terms of his release?"

"It would appear not. I can only assume any such message must have been delivered in person. It could have been sent to their residence, Dr. Kratides's place of work, or it could have been left wherever Paul was taken from. Based on my memory of the police report, his car was gone as well, so finding his place of disappearance might prove difficult."

"Right, so we start by checking their house and her office, hope for a clue there."

"I think that would be most expedient, yes. I'm afraid we might be under a serious time constraint. I can only assume they have taken Paul as a means to... influence Dr Kratides to surrender her research. There is every chance they might be torturing either or both of them." Sherlock's mouth dipped at the corner, and he unconsciously brought a hand up to cup the back of the baby's head.

"Well, we should get going, then," Joan said, already moving towards the door.

"I think you mean _I_ should get going. Someone should stay with Toni." Sherlock was advancing towards her, loosening the sling. 

Joan backed up, raising her hands. "Oh no, you are not leaving me here to watch the baby, Sherlock. This isn't the fifties. And she doesn't even like me!"

"Come now, she's an infant, she has no personal preferences. She merely sensed your nervousness and reacted accordingly." He held the baby out.

Joan crossed her arms. "Why don't we get a sitter? We can call Alfredo back." She remembered his hesitancy, as did Sherlock evidently. He sighed and shook his head. "We can call Ms Hudson!" she exclaimed, in a last ditch effort to avoid baby sitting duty.

"Ms Hudson?" Sherlock frowned. "I'm sure if we want the child to learn Ancient Greek she'd do very well, but I hardly think she'd be in her right element changing diapers."

"She was in the boy scouts! She must have learned something useful there."

"Yes, I know for a fact she's very good at tying knots. But I can't see how she'd be more skilled in child caring than a medical professional."

"I'm a surgeon not a pediatrician!"

Sherlock sighed deeply, looking down at the baby, for the first time with something bordering on displeasure in his eyes.

"Wait..." Joan said. "Does Ms Hudson only know _Ancient_ Greek?"

Sherlock looked up at her with a calculating expression. "I believe she dated a Greek diplomat once. I'm sure it's possible she could have picked up a phrase or two."

Joan gestured. "A phrase or two. That you might not know? When we know for a fact that the kidnappers have communicated only in Greek so far. But you do know how to change a diaper and stop the baby from crying..."

Sherlock smiled. "You are absolutely right, Watson. I apologize. My zeal to see our case through to its culmination rendered my logic momentarily flawed. You are entirely capable of finishing this case by yourself, with the aid of Ms Hudson. I shall stay here and mind the baby."

Joan thought she might look a little too relieved, but couldn't quite bring herself to feel bad about it. "Good. Fantastic. I'll call her up right away. Did you find the Kratides's address?"

Sherlock pointed to the screen. "Yes, I have it right here." 

Joan made a note and started walking away again, but guilty conscience compelled her to turn back and ask, "You're sure you'll be okay?"

"Oh yes, quite fine, Watson. I'm sure I have enough experiments to last me until your return." He smiled and bounced the baby.

"No! No experimenting on the baby, Sherlock. I mean it. Absolutely not."

"Watson, I assure you I would not attempt anything at all invasive or emotionally harmful. I promise to stick solely to very light tests of motor control and memory. You have my word."

Joan eyed him for another moment. But he had been entirely careful and good with the baby the whole time. Even though she knew he could seem careless at times, he had never actually hurt anyone with any of his experiments. Even Clyde was still alive, which had to count for something.

"Alright, just please be careful," she said.

"I most solemnly swear it, Watson." He looked down at the baby, picked up her hand carefully and made it wave. "Bye, Joan. Bye, Joanie." His voice was light and intended for the baby. Toni gurgled and kicked her legs.

Joan shook her head, refusing to smile, and left. She found her car parked down the street and made the call to Ms Hudson en route to the house. 

"Anthea, hi. It's Joan. I was wondering: do you know Greek? The modern kind? I might need a consult on a case. It's urgent."

"Joan, what a surprise!" Ms Hudson sounded pleased. "I dated someone from Greece once, but I'm afraid my vocabulary isn't very... versatile. Do you need an interpreter?"

"Oh no, I just need someone who can translate a text."

"Oh, well that's my specialty! I'll bring my dictionary. Where shall I meet you?"

Joan gave her the address and they said their goodbyes. She tried to concentrate on traffic, but being alone on a case always made her feel a little fidgety. 

She pulled up alongside the Kratides residence in good time, with no sign of Ms Hudson yet, so she picked up her cell phone and texted Sherlock: "Meeting Ms Hudson at the house. Will call you if I have any questions."

Her phone buzzed shortly after. Sherlock had sent a photo of an alert-looking Toni drinking formula out of a bottle. Joan smiled.

She didn't have to wait long outside the house for Ms Hudson to appear. She arrived in a cab, looking perfectly put together in her camel coat and up-done hair. She smiled and kissed the air by Joan's cheek. "No Sherlock?" 

Joan shook her head and tried to fill her in as quickly as possible. 

Ms Hudson's was appropriately horrified. "Anything I can do to help!"

"Well, right now you can keep me covered," Joan sighed and led the way to front door. She got out her set of lockpicks and kneeled down. Ms Hudson unobtrusively stuck her hands in her coat pockets and fanned it out a bit more. Joan spared a second to smile gratefully at her before concentrating on the lock. She had been practicing, but it still took her several long minutes before they could slip inside. 

"This is exhilarating!" Ms Hudson whispered as the door closed behind them. "I can see why you'd rather do this than doctoring."

Joan smiled wryly. "Well, it's not all fun and games..."

"Right! Right, of course." Ms Hudson looked around with big eyes, as if she was expecting some monumental clue to be dangling from the ceiling. 

They scanned the hall, especially the area by the door, with no luck. Moving through the house it was clear that Sophia Kratides had left in a hurry. There were clothes and baby paraphernalia spilled across the living room and into the kitchen. More than the living room it showed signs of a quick evacuation. Dirty dishes were strewn on the table, and various food items had been left out on the table.

"Oh dear," Ms Hudson tutted. 

Before Joan knew how to divert her she had begun to collect the condiments and throw spoiled food away. She debated whether she should argue but decided against it. She rifled through a stack of unopened mail, checked the fridge for notes, but found nothing useful. 

Ms Hudson was loading the dishwasher when she suddenly exclaimed. "Joan, do you think this might be it?" She was holding a slightly crumpled sheet of paper. The writing was in Greek.

"I don't know, what does it say?" Joan came over to have a closer look.

"Oh, it says, um... 'Dr, We have your husband. Come to the address below. We have the papers. All you must do is sign.'"

"Address?" Joan frowned. Could it really be that easy? "That's in Kensington. It's not very far from here."

Ms Hudson looked at her. "Do you think they're keeping them trapped there?"

"It looks that way." Joan pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of the note, sending it Sherlock. Then she headed for her car, Ms Hudson following close behind, which made her stop. "Oh. Anthea. Thank you. You don't have to come with me. It might be dangerous."

Ms Hudson squared her shoulders, tipped her chin up. "No, I want to see this through, Joan. Those poor people! Besides, I couldn't leave you without back-up."

Joan smiled. "Oh, I'm not going anywhere without back-up." She held her phone up and strode purposefully out of the house, turning briefly to see Ms Hudson securely close the front door behind them.

"Bell, it's Joan. I have a potential kidnapping in Kensington, I might need your help."

Bell sounded surprised but not busy. "That's pretty serious. I'll put a team together right away."

"Perfect. I'll text you the address. I'm headed there now." She opened the car door and climbed inside.

"Just you? What about Sherlock?"

"He... had to stay at home," she replied with only an infinitesimal hesitation.

"What, is he grounded?" Bell asked, amused.

"No, he's just... working on another aspect of the case. Look," she said decisively. "I'll fill you in later."

"Sure, no problem. We'll be at your location shortly."

Joan hung up the phone and spared a moment to share a significant look with Ms Hudson, who heaved in a breath and sighed explosively. Joan nodded in agreement and started the car.

As she pulled off the curb, she put in another call, this time to Sherlock.

"It would seem our kidnappers are inordinately stupid," he said as soon as he picked up. Joan could hear the baby in the background. "The house in Kensington is rented out to a Thomas Gianópoulos, whose last source of income was a construction job for a Mr Dímas, who in turn is a former employer of Dr Kratides. She left that company's cancer research department less than a year ago in favor of her current employer. I would hazard the guess that Mr Dímas feels she has cheated him out of a lot of money."

Joan nodded. "So he's probably the one who's trying to make her sign over her patent. Give him the right to her research."

"It's very likely. It's also very crudely done. Do be careful, Watson."

"We will. Talk to you later."

She tried hard not to break the speed limits, but didn't quite manage it the whole way. Her stomach was in an uproar, adrenaline already pumping through her. 

They made it to the house before Bell's team. Joan rolled the car slowly past, parking right around the corner, on the opposite side of the street. The place looked innocuous enough, the whole street quiet and deserted. 

She was just settling in to wait for reinforcements when there was a crash of glass and a muffled shout. They stared at each other. Then Joan cursed and sprang out of the car. She knew she was being stupid, but it sounded as though things were spinning out of control inside, and she couldn't just sit around and wait and hope the kidnappers wouldn't start shooting. Dammit.

"They have guns," she muttered to Ms Hudson who was right behind her. "Be careful." Ms Hudson nodded silently. 

There was a broken-off board lying in the driveway. Joan picked it up. The back door next to the garage was unlocked when she tested it. Ms Hudson nodded at her and they crept inside. 

There was an audible commotion on the second floor, the empty house devoid of people on the first floor. They snuck up the stairs as quietly as possible, but the loud voices arguing probably masked any sounds they made anyway. 

Right at the top of the stairs a doorway opened up on her left. Joan barely consciously registered the movement before she'd swung the board and hit a man square in the face. He went down with a dumb look of surprise.

Joan stared at Ms Hudson. Ms Hudson stared back. Then she quickly checked the inside of the door for a key, closed the door on the unconscious man, and locked it. Joan gave an impressed quirk of her eyebrow.

The voices further down the hall had quieted down somewhat and seemed to belong to only two men now. "I think there are two more kidnappers," Ms Hudson whispered. "They're arguing about... rope, chair. Something about... burning." She shuddered.

Suddenly the one voiced hushed the other, harshly. Joan and Ms Hudson froze, almost right outside the doorway to the occupied room. One of the thugs called out, probably for their incapacitated man. Joan only had a moment to feel her heart thud hard in her chest before a man stormed out into the hallway, gun in hand, blocking the doorway. 

He saw them, and almost at the very same moment Ms Hudson stepped up on Joan's left side and closed an iron fist over his wrist while Joan aimed a hard jab directly at his solar plexus. Even as he doubled over, Ms Hudson was there to wrench the gun out of his hand. He went down, and Joan hit him over the back of his neck with her board as hard as she could. 

The man inside the room gave a shout of surprise, his gun wavering between Joan and Sophia and Paul, huddled in the corner by the doorway to Joan's right. Joan didn't think. She just stepped inside to block his aim at the two people, Ms Hudson following her smoothly, gun aimed calmly at the man. Joan opened her mouth to say something when a blare of sirens cut through the broken window, making the gunman jump. He stared at Joan and Ms Hudson, surprise writ large on his face, before he carefully knelt to put his gun on the floor and put his hands on his head. 

Ms Hudson grinned at her, fierce and thrilled. Joan raised her eyebrows. "Boy scouts?"

Ms Hudson laughed. "Not exactly."

Joan could hear the SWAT team trundling up the stairs and turned to check on Paul and Sophia. Both seemed unharmed but shocked. 

"Dr Kratides, Mr Kratides, my name is Joan Watson. I work with Sherlock Holmes. Your daughter is safe. Everything is fine now." She helped them both up as the police filed into the room. 

"Joan, what the hell?" Bell sounded frightened and out of breath. Then he got a view of Ms Hudson, who had already put her gun up and was quietly letting a SWAT member divest her of it.

"We heard a noise," Joan shrugged. "We were afraid they would hurt the Kratideses so we went in."

"You heard a noise." Bell looked supremely unimpressed. "So you went in."

Joan sighed. "Look, you don't have to be snarky. I know it wasn't my greatest moment. But you can hardly argue with the results."

"Oh I _can_ argue, and you will get to _hear_ me argue all the way to the station. I can't believe y-- Who is you friend?" He narrowed his eyes at Ms Hudson.

"This is Ms Hudson. Ms Hudson, Detective Bell." Joan gestured between them.

Ms Hudson held out her hand. "Enchanté."

Bell shook her hand. "Enchan... Oh, alright, that's enough. Everybody to the station, _now_."

"So decisive!" Ms Hudson stage-whispered to Joan, squeezing her arm and pulling her out the door. Joan laughed.

She stopped right outside the door. "Oh, by the way, Bell, we left another one in the room across the hall there." She pointed. Bell stared at her as if she'd grown an extra head.

Bell did shout at her most of the way to the station. Joan did her best to be polite about it, but spared a moment to sneak a text to Sherlock, telling him to bring Toni to the station. He replied in laudatory terms and promised to set out right away.

The Kratideses were still debriefing with Gregson when Sherlock announced he was nearby. Ms Hudson was being interrogated by Bell, so Joan snuck outside to meet Sherlock when he arrived. She could feel herself slowly coming down, but still felt light and buoyant from the excitement.

She met Sherlock walking down the street with Toni in the baby sling and jauntily swinging a plastic bag in one hand. "Ah, Watson. I gather you've had an eventful couple of hours," he greeted her.

"I have." She smiled. "How was your day?"

"Oh, not dull in the least. Although I did find it quite nerve racking to wait for news of you." He rocked back on his heels. "Good thing I had Antonia to keep me busy."

"I know some people who'll be very happy to see her again," Joan said, stroking the baby's hair.

"How adorable!" An elderly woman had materialised out of nowhere, gazing tenderly at Toni. She looked at Joan. "Congratulations. My, what a beautiful baby you have there."

Joan shook her head. "Oh, it's not--"

"She is indeed," Sherlock said loudly. "Takes after her mother!"

The woman smiled at him, then winked slyly at Joan. "He's a keeper, this one. I have five children, and I never could make my husband take the stroller out."

"Oh, that's--"

"Terrible indeed," Sherlock talked right over her. "How lucky we are. The times they are a-changing." He grinned at the woman.

Joan rolled her eyes. "Come on, metro man."

The woman smiled at them and moved on down the street. 

"I have met the most interesting people on my way here, Watson," Sherlock confided in pleased tones as he let Joan tow him inside. "You'd be surprised how easy it is to fall to talking when you have one of these strapped to your chest." He gestured at the baby. "I have collected three sets of child rearing advice, of which two are in direct opposition. Not to mention the five phone numbers I've been given, one from a most charming gentleman who either wants me to babysit his own progeny or start a family with me; it was unclear."

"Okay, did you tell them she wasn't actually yours?" They walked up the stairs to the station.

"I did, and it only seemed to render me somehow more attractive to people." Sherlock held the door open and gestured her inside. "The human mind is curious, indeed, Watson!"

**Author's Note:**

> The Toni plot is largely modelled on the story of The Case of the Baker Street Nursemaids (s01ep26 of the Allegro Sherlock Holmes adaptation, available on YouTube). The kidnapping plot is very loosely based on The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter by ACD. What can I say? I'm not good at making up plot *hands* 
> 
> Did you spot the reference? Yes, Joan does at one point almost quote Dr McCoy. Yes, The Greek Interpreter is the story where Watson first learns of Mycroft. Yes, there is some fanon speculation that Ms Hudson's knowledge of Ancient Greek is a nod to The Greek Interpreter in canon. Yes, I do believe Sherlock and Ms Hudson have had kinky consensual sex at least once. Yes, Sherlock references the Marauders. Yes, I called Ms Hudson Anthea to emphasise another fanon speculation that Sherlock knows her through Mycroft. And yes, it is fortunate that there's a Kensington in New York as well as London.


End file.
